Ted Haggard Admits To Using Meth Only To “Enhance Masturbation”

When Gayle leaves to pick up lunch from a nearby Italian joint, I mention that I visited Mike Jones in Denver. Ted tenses and preemptively begins debunking Jones’s claims again—no sex, no repeat massages, no kinky stuff. He admits that he bought drugs from Jones “five or six times” but maintains that he wasn’t an addict.

“Sometimes I’d throw it away,” he says. “Other times, I’d go someplace and masturbate and use it. But it was for masturbation. And that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been real clear. I don’t want to stand up publicly and say, ‘Hey, I’m a masturbation guy!’

“You know, that’s really the core issue here,” he continues, lowering his voice. “I bought the drugs to enhance masturbation. Because what crystal meth does—Mike taught me this—crystal meth makes it so you don’t ejaculate soon. So you can watch porn and masturbate for a long time.”

“And it would be gay porn?” I ask.

“It would be both. I enjoyed both then.”

“Do you watch porn anymore?”

“Now we’re getting into what should happen between me, my wife, and my therapist.”

For the first time since we’ve met, Ted isn’t looking directly at me. “Here’s where I really am on this issue,” he half whispers. “I think that probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual.” After a weekend of Ted trying to convince me of his unambiguous devotion to his wife and kids, I’m at first too surprised to say anything.

“So why not now?” I ask finally.

“Because, Kevin, I’m 54, with children, with a belief system, and I can have enforced boundaries in my life. Just like you’re a heterosexual but you don’t have sex with every woman that you’re attracted to, so I can be who I am and exclusively have sex with my wife and be perfectly satisfied.”

“But what does it have to do with being 54?”

“Life!” he says. “We live an ordinary life.”

Ordinary life! Ordinary life, where you deliberately and repeatedly thrust yourself, your wife, and your children into the public eye by reminding us, every day, in print and on a new reality show, that you masturbated to gay porn with a gay hooker while on crystal meth.

Gary Ted Haggard was one of the biggest supporters and cheerleaders of the Amendment 43 in Colorado which banned same sex marriage. Here is the wikipedia section about Haggard’s teachings about homosexuality.

-Teachings on homosexuality-

In 2006, Haggard and his church supported “Amendment 43” to the Colorado Constitution.[71] It provided, “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”[72] Although Colorado law already defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, Haggard and other gay rights opponents sought to enshrine the prohibition in the state constitution. In the movie Jesus Camp, Haggard says, “we don’t have to debate about what we should think about homosexual activity. It’s written in the Bible.”[73] Although Haggard opposes same-sex marriage, he has suggested that there should be civil unions for homosexual couples.[74]

Under Haggard’s leadership, the NAE released “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility” in late 2004, “a document urging engagement in traditional culture war issues such as abortion and gay marriage but also poverty, education, taxes, welfare and immigration.” The NAE has stated that “homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures.”

I think one major thing here is that Ted Haggard NEVER once preached hatred from his pulpit. He was embracing to everyone who wanted to come back to the church. He never said that gays were sick or immoral. He asked his church to allow gay men and women to return to the church, allow them to find God and when they do, welcome them home. Please check that out. He NEVER preached hate like Joel Osteen.
Please do not forget how the church completely turned on the Haggards – a church of love and inclusion indeed.
I am a gay man, Jewish and in full support of Ted Haggard and his family.
He needs to get his message out there and if a show on TLC is the way to do that, so be it.
I support him and his family in their efforts to reclaim their lives and create a church that truly practices what it preaches.